Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1887-05-02

amount needed, plans and accompany
ing bids were invited, based upon that
amount. The one accepted by the COM
was from a jail-building firm in
st. Louis, WHO offered to construct GER
tain buildings, etc., for the amount of
the appropriation, provided some six or
seven thousand dollars worth of work
should be performed by the prisoners.
The plan and bid being the best one Of
fered, it was accepted. Before the con-
tract was drawn, however, Congress
passed law forbidding any work being
performed by prisoners upon
Uuited States public buildings.
The st. Louis firm was written to, asking
them if. they would fulfill the contract
without the work specified to be done by
the prisoners. They replied that they
had named the lowest possible figures
for which the work could be done with
the aid of the convicts, and that without
it they would lose money on the contract
A bill was introduced in Congress at the
last session, increasing the appropriation
to 100000, but it was smothered in
some committee and never reached the
general file in the House So the matter
stands at present. The Commissioners,
Governor West and Marshal Dyer can do
nothing, although they have re-
quested District Attorney Dickson
to examine the law and ascer-
tain if there is any possibility of
utilizing the work of the convicts in
some manner, to the amount specified,
without positive violation of the statute.
Mr.. Dickson has, we believe, the matter
now under consideration, but from what
we can learn, he has not yet been able to
discover anything which can be favora-
bly, interpreted for the purpose designed.
In the meantime the miserable collection
of novels, surrounded by a delapidated
adobe wall and designated apenitentiary,
is disgrace to the United States govern
ment. 1t is not fit place for habi-
tation of the lowest race of
people on the face of the
earth. The sleeping quarters are
three miserable lumber shanties, lined
with double hunks, in each of which two
prisoners sleep, or sweat out the night,
in the heated and fetid atmosphere, poi
soned by the breaths of three times the
number of persons that would be permit
ted to occupy the same space for sleeping
quarters under the cubic air ordinance in
San Francisco. AS an illustration, one
building twenty by twenty-one feet is
occupied by forty-nine persons. There is
not room enough on the floor to permit
all OF them to stand erect upon it at once,
much less to dress or undress at the
same time. This is about the average
condition OF human density which pre-
Yails in all of the sleeping buildings of
the prison, and it seems absolutely
miracle that some epidemic has not
broken out there long before this. 1t is
wonder to us that the imprisoned
Saints have not utilized their exemption
from disease, as proof of the power and
mercy of the Mormon God in protecting
his chosen people, as the Lord of a few
thousand years ago salamandered the bib
lical trio, who stood several hours roast
ing in fiery furnace, without
singing a hair or experiencing
the discomfort OF more than
wholesome perspiration. If there was
anything which would inspire one with
belief in the God of "body, parts and
passions it would be the fact that the
believers in him have been so mirac-
ulously exempted from fatal disease in
the Utah penitentiary. Probably, how
ever, Warden Brown is the chief pro-
tective power of both saints and sinners.
He has omitted nothing which was prac-
ticable under the adverse circumstances,
which would tend to the preservation OF
the health of the two hundred prisoners
under his charge. The sleeping and
eating quarters are kept in the |
cleanest possible condition, and he
strictly enforces the prison rule which |
obliges every inmate to take |
oath at certain specified intervals. These,
With the wholesome quality of food
furnished by Marshal Dyer, are doubt
ess the principal factors in the ac-
of the apparent miracle of
reedom from disease at the Pen. The
'ating place is tumble down old shanty,
carcely fit for a pig sty, while the adobe
tructure which constitutes the officers
quarters, looks like the ruins of an old
spanish California hacienda, transformed
nto tenement house for Chinatown.
n short, the entire institution is
disgrace to the Federal Government.
t is no fitting place for the confinement
t the worst classes of criminals, and it
absolutely infamous to subject ordinary
ffenders of the law to the horrors of
in such an overcrowded
institution, with scarcely any facilities for
he officers to ameliorate their wretched
ondition. The Commissioners would be
Justified by the laws OF humanity, in
training to its utmost limit the Con-
ressional statute, which is a barrier to
he construction of prison such as would
ot be disgrace to humanity, civiliza-
ion and the great American Nation.
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